In early Spring the number of wildflowers
in bloom in the northeastern states and adjacent Canada is relatively
low. At that time of year, most of the species are comparatively distinctive and
identifiable without much difficulty. Descriptive adjectives (in
English) pertaining to flower color and size, leaf shape and plant height are
sufficient to describe many early-flowering plants. By mid-Spring,
matters get a bit more complicated, when violets pose a few challenges.

However by June, hundreds of
additional species begin sending forth new shoots, and plant identification
becomes more
challenging. The problem becomes especially acute for large plant
families that contain many similar-looking species, differentiated by
minute, obscure morphological characters.

Countless scientific terms have been created to describe
the diverse structures of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of
plant species (worldwide). It's not possible to describe all the
plants we find with familiar, everyday (vernacular) words, such as
leaves, stems, branches, petals, hairs, etc.

Consider, for example the chart below
that shows photos of 24 different species in the composite family
(Asteraceae). These species form an identifiable
"group", and have similar characteristics that are derived
from shared ancestry. They all have milky sap and leaves that are
either basal or alternate.
Most of them also have florets
with yellow, 5-toothed, ray-like corollas
(i.e., "ligules").
However, it is difficult to distinguish the yellow-flowered species based on just
the few, above-mentioned characteristics. In order to distinguish them, one may also
need to know whether the leaves have lobes
or not; whether the edges of the
leaves are spiny or not; how many florets per flower head they typically
have; whether the involucral
bracts are appressed
or spreading,
hairy or hairless;
whether the fruits are flattened or round in cross-section, and so
forth.
(Refer to the list below for an index to the images in this chart.)
Key
to genera in this group of species.

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For species descriptions on this
website I have attempted to achieve a balance,
replacing as many technical terms with English words as is reasonable,
and to make the sentence style more like that of an English
sentence. But, there are many scientific terms that don't have
easy one- or two-word English equivalents; for example, involucre,
receptacle, oblanceolate, pappus, leaf axils, subtend.... The latter is
actually an English word, used in a specialized manner to describe
certain plant structures. Let's take a concrete example.

Receptacle: "In the
Asteraceae, the expanded portion of a peduncle bearing the florets,
involucral bracts and chaff."

It would not be feasible to replace the
term "receptacle" with the 16 words used in
the above example, whenever it became necessary to describe
characteristics of receptacles.

Most technical terms used at this website
are defined in a Glossary,
accessed from the General
Resources Page. Technical terms found on species description
pages are also hyperlinked to their definitions in the Glossary.